Military home ownership:
understanding your options
Advice built around military life
Can you buy a property while living in
military accommodation? Could you buy a home now and rent it out until you're
ready to live there? Could Forces Help to Buy help you purchase a home? And
what are your house purchase options when leaving the Armed Forces, or facing
relationship breakdown, discharge or redundancy?
At PFL Mortgages, we're Armed Forces
specialist mortgage advisers and members of the Services Insurance and
Investment Advisory Panel (SIIAP). We understand the opportunities and
challenges of buying a home during military life, and we're here to help
serving personnel, veterans and their families explore what's possible.
You don't need to be ready to apply for a
mortgage to speak to us. We're happy to help you understand your options.
Military life can affect when, where and
how you buy a home. Postings in the UK and overseas, the option of buying while
living in Service accommodation, military pay and allowances, and plans for
life after Service can all influence your decisions.
Our advisers understand these challenges
and know that mortgage lenders don't all approach military circumstances in the
same way. We can help you find a lender who understands your situation and
explore what's possible when buying a home while serving.
For example, some lenders may allow you to
buy a property using a residential mortgage and rent it out until you're ready
to move in. This can avoid the need for a buy-to-let mortgage, which typically
requires a much larger deposit and often comes with higher interest rates and
fees.
If you'd like a home of your own to live in
now, don't assume you need substantial savings. Forces Help to Buy could
provide up to £25,000, and for some people that may be enough to cover both the
deposit and legal costs. You might be closer to buying than you realise.
If you're planning for life after Service,
it's worth exploring your home ownership options early. As your leaving date
approaches, mortgage lenders may need to consider what income you'll have
afterwards, rather than relying on your military salary. Leaving it too late
could limit your options, even while you're still serving.
We can also help you explore affordable
home ownership schemes if buying a property outright is beyond your budget, as
well as moving home or remortgaging. And if your circumstances are changing
because of a relationship breakdown, discharge or redundancy, we're here to
help you understand what home ownership options may be available.
More than mortgage advice
When you're ready to buy, our help goes
beyond arranging the mortgage. We can assist with making offers to estate
agents, finding solicitors who understand the needs of Armed Forces families
and have experience with Forces Help to Buy, and helping your purchase progress
smoothly. We'll also keep you informed every step of the way, so you always
know what's happening.
Our support isn't just for when you're
ready to buy. We want to help you understand your home ownership options at
every stage of military life, whether you're buying your first home, planning
for life after Service or facing a change in circumstances that could affect
your entitlement to Service accommodation. That's why we've created five free
guides covering some of the most important home ownership questions facing the
Armed Forces community.
Our home ownership guides
1. Buying Your First Home While Serving
2. Forces Help to Buy
3. Affordable Home Ownership
4. Home Ownership after Loss of Entitlement
to SFA
5. Buying Your Home for Life After Service
You can read or download all five guides at
https://pflmortgages.com/guides-and-advice.
Have a question? Ask us
Whether you've got a simple question or
something more complicated you'd like to discuss, you can ask us directly at https://pflmortgages.com/ask.
One of our three Armed Forces specialist mortgage advisers — Craig, Lucy or
Charles — will personally answer your question, either by email or with a phone
call, whichever you'd prefer.
Supporting the Armed Forces
community
For us, supporting the Armed Forces
community isn't a marketing campaign — it's part of who we are.
Members of the Armed Forces and their
families never pay us a fee for our help. We also make a donation to SSAFA for
every completed Armed Forces mortgage.
We help military families however much — or
however little — they need us.
PFL Mortgages — https://pflmortgages.com/armed-forces